Last week, the Palestinian cause and the world lost a great intellectual mind. Edward Said, the renowned advocate for the Palestinian cause, Professor at Columbia University, and author of the influential “Orientalism”, passed away at the age of 67. I need not, nor have the space to, give a synopsis of the accomplishments the Palestinian scholar has achieved. Rather, my focus is on another issue that Professor Said was known for, his opposition to the two-state solution. In “Power, Politics and Culture,” he says “the only conclusion to be drawn from this is to devise a means where the two peoples can live together in one nation as equals, not master and slave, which is the current situation.”
Growing up as a Palestinian child, you are most likely surrounded with the conflict in one way or the other. When you hear about all the troubles and irresolvable quarrels, you may tend to think, “can’t we all just get along?” This thought constantly crossed my mind during childhood.
Now I revert to that mentality but for a different reason. What we need to realize is that a one-state solution will work not because everyone is jumping at the chance to have a neighbor who they have been fighting for the past 50 years, but rather because there is simply no other workable solution.
Critics may still argue that a two state solution is still possible. I disagree completely. This rosy idea of two states living side-by-side in peace will never happen. This is not pessimism; this is realism. For a two-state solution to be considered, you would need to be working with two states. But the American and Israeli conception of the “state” that the Palestinians would have is the main reason why the solution will not work.
Last semester, Dennis Ross spoke to an audience here at the University of Massachusetts regarding his work as an ambassador and mediator between both parties under the Clinton administration. After his lecture and joke of a question-and-answer session, he exited the building.
This is when I had a chance to catch up with him and ask him the questions he didn’t want to answer in front of the audience he was catering to. On our walk, we discussed what type of “state” the Palestinians would have. Well, the idea he described was not a “state” at all. In fact, he told me that the Palestinians could never have complete sovereignty over their land and air space, could never have armed forces and could never have full control over their own borders. So basically, the Palestinians would have the rights to collect taxes and clean the sewers of the spotted territories they would control within the West Bank and Gaza. This is why the two-state solution won’t work, because it doesn’t deal with the ideal outcome of two states. Rather, it deals with Israel and a fenced-in meaningless mass of Palestinians.
After expressing my disgust to Ambassador Ross about the situation, we went in separate directions and from that point on, I understood that the inclination I had about the need for a one-state solution was the only viable option.
Israel now has under its control approximately 8 million people, half of which are Palestinians. The vast majorities are living under Israeli occupation and have no voice in the government. The booming population of Palestinians under Israeli occupation is leading to a problem which Thomas Friedman called the “end of the Jewish Democracy.”
The situation now is not only undemocratic and unjust, but is further perpetuating the cycle of violence. From its beginning, the state of Israel has demanded its right to exist on the premise that there needs to be a national homeland for the Jewish people. However, as history has shown us, Israel has only existed in the Middle East and continues to exist there with the constant use of force because it is a foreign entity to the region. Before the ideology of Jewish nationalism came to the Middle East, Palestine was a homeland to Arabs, some of which were Christians and some of which were Jews. They had no problem living together. They went to school together, shopped at each other’s stores, and went on with life.
However, once the ideology of Jewish nationalism was forced upon the land through the influx of European Jewish immigrants, the religious divide was invoked. Suddenly, after the creation of the state of Israel, identification cards marked you as Christian, Muslim or Jew. The Arab and Palestinian identity was forced into disappearance.
Honestly, what need is there for the land to have a purely Jewish character? Why can’t a secular bi-national country exist governed democratically by the people who live on it? Who cares if a different flag flies over the land as long as all people have the right to live on the same land in which their ancestors have been buried for centuries? That is true nationalism, not some colorful banner reminding us that we are different, but a connection to the land that reminds us that we are the same.
The argument that a national “Jewish” homeland is necessary is no longer as powerful as it was directly after World War II. Am I to believe that such homeland is necessary for those fleeing genocidal persecution today in the 21st century? Palestine/Israel is not some remote African nation that we, in the west, tend to ignore when genocide is occurring; rather, it is the most watched conflict in the world. Also, if a solution to the conflict is finally at hand, every leader, NGO, nation, and citizen will be watching to make sure everyone is on his or her best behavior so that this conflict stays resolved. The genocides of the 20th century have opened the eyes of the world.
The one-state solution solves the conflict and is only opposed by radical petty arguments that no longer are relevant in the world we live in today. The ideology of zealous nationalism and religious national identification is a phase that is passing, and has to be for the world to logically progress. The one-state solution will work because it has to; honestly, it’s the only way out.
Yousef Munayyer is a Collegian columnist.
